''L'esprit de l'escalier'' or (, , ; ) is a
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
term used in English for the predicament of thinking of the perfect reply too late.
Origin
This name for the phenomenon comes from French encyclopedist and philosopher
Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot (; ; 5 October 171331 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the ''Encyclopédie'' along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a promine ...
's description of such a situation in his
''Paradoxe sur le comédien'' ("Paradox on the Comedian").
[Paradoxe sur le comédien, 1773, remanié en 1778; Diderot II, Classiques Larousse 1934, p. 56] During a dinner at the home of statesman
Jacques Necker
Jacques Necker (; 30 September 1732 – 9 April 1804) was a Genevan banker and statesman who served as finance minister for Louis XVI. He was a reformer, but his innovations sometimes caused great discontent. Necker was a constitutional monarchi ...
, a remark was made to Diderot which left him speechless at the time, because, he explains, "a sensitive man, such as myself, overwhelmed by the argument levelled against him, becomes confused and doesn't come to himself again until at the bottom of the stairs" ("").
In this case, "the bottom of the stairs" refers to the architecture of the kind of or mansion to which Diderot had been invited. In such houses, the reception rooms were on the , one floor above the ground floor. To have reached the bottom of the stairs means to have definitively left the gathering.
In other languages
The Yiddish ("staircase words") and the German
loan translation
In linguistics, a calque () or loan translation is a word or phrase borrowed from another language by literal word-for-word or root-for-root translation. When used as a verb, "to calque" means to borrow a word or phrase from another language wh ...
''
Treppenwitz'' express the same idea as . However, in contemporary German has an additional meaning: it refers to events or facts that seem to contradict their own background or context. The frequently used phrase ''Treppenwitz der Weltgeschichte'' ("staircase joke of world history") derives from the title of a book by that name by
(1882; much expanded 1895) and means "irony of history" or "paradox of history".
In Russian language, the notion is close to the native Russian saying "задним умом крепки" (''zadnim umom krepki'', "Our
hindsight
Hindsight bias, also known as the knew-it-all-along phenomenon or creeping determinism, is the common tendency for people to perceive past events as having been more predictable than they actually were. People often believe that after an event ha ...
is strong"). The French expression is also in use in French.
English speakers sometimes call this "escalator wit", or "staircase wit".
See also
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Comic timing
Comic timing emerges from a performer's joke delivery: they interact with an audience— intonation, rhythm, cadence, tempo, and pausing—to guide the audience's laughter, which then guides the comedic narrative. The pacing of the delivery of ...
*
Epimetheus
In Greek mythology, Epimetheus (; grc-gre, Ἐπιμηθεύς, , afterthought) was the brother of Prometheus (traditionally interpreted as "foresight", literally "fore-thinker"), a pair of Titans who "acted as representatives of mankind". The ...
*
"The Comeback" (''Seinfeld'')
*
Hindsight
Hindsight bias, also known as the knew-it-all-along phenomenon or creeping determinism, is the common tendency for people to perceive past events as having been more predictable than they actually were. People often believe that after an event ha ...
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Esprit De L'escalier, L'
French words and phrases
Figures of speech
Quotations from literature
Quotations from philosophy
1770s neologisms